Your Love Will Be Safe With Me
by Splinker
Summary: Shaun always fell too hard too fast.


Shaun opened the door and found Zach staring at his shoes. But that only lasted a moment because then Zach's hands were on Shaun, pulling his body to Zach's and his lips right into Zach's eager mouth. His lips were warm and soft against Shaun's as he guided them back and up the steps to lean against the wall. He pulled away and looked right at him, into him, and Shaun silently pleaded to himself that Zach wouldn't suddenly turn back and say that this was all a mistake. Zach's eyes were dark and questioning as he looked Shaun over, searched his face for something...permission, maybe a sign of defiance. He found neither and it was entirely too long before Zach's lips were back against his own, his hand on Shaun's cheek pulling Shaun back to him.

The kisses were frenzied and wild as they maneuvered the steps and tugged at each other's clothing on the path to Shaun's bedroom. Zach hit the bed first and Shaun wanted to take a moment to analyze, to look at Zach so ready and willing before him and decide what this meant, but he'd promised himself that he wouldn't, so he didn't. He didn't think about anything except how it'd felt to have Zach's tongue brush his again, how the second time was better than the first and how eagerly he was anticipating the third. He climbed on the bed above Zach, his hands braced on each side of Zach's head, holding his weight, and then Zach's hands were on him, pulling him closer.

Zach's hands were electric and searing, burning Shaun from the inside out in their constant quest for contact, pressing Shaun down against him until all of Shaun's weight was resting against Zach. Zach's tongue against his own was paralyzing, condensing him to a quivering mass, his mouth opening wider against Zach's for more.

Zach arched up into Shaun, their groins pressing together, eliciting a soft moan in the back of Shaun's throat. He pulled away and looked up at Shaun, his eyes blue and blazing, lips quirked into a smile, and there it was again. Love, raging so strong in his chest that Shaun felt that he could do this forever, just kissing, no promise of more. He would be perfectly content to just lay in bed with Zach and feel the heat emanating from his body, to hold Zach in his arms, to see the flush in Zach's cheeks and neck from arousal. He had to fight with himself to push the thought back and away, because it was too much, too soon. Zach wasn't ready for that and he'd promised himself that he wouldn't.

He'd been staring down at Zach, studying his face for far too long, he realized, when Zach's smile slowly faded. The burst of his earlier confidence suddenly gone, his eyes grew dark under Shaun's gaze, wistful, until he looked away altogether. Shaun brought his hand to Zach's face, brushing his fingertips against the warm, smooth surface of his cheek, letting his thumb whipser across Zach's lips. He didn't flinch away from Shaun's touch, for which Shaun was immensely grateful, but he still didn't look at him.

"Hey," he started, his voice soft and calming. Zach's eyes met his, clear blue and full of an emotion Shaun couldn't put a name to. He swallowed, nervous. He'd never not been able to read Zach's eyes. But Zach just kept on staring up at him, their eyes locked in this heated gaze that was getting more and more intense as the moments wore on.

He needed to say something, but the sudden charge in the air made whatever he was about to say seem terribly important, like it might change things, like it might change everything.

"Zach," he began, not quite sure of what he wanted to say, but knowing that he had to continue. "I don't do...," he paused, trailing off, trying to figure out how to put meaning into it but not too much meaning.

He came up blank.

He couldn't hide the emotion in his voice when he continued. "I don't have casual sex, Zach. I've never been good at it."

Zach's eyes were pools, dark blue and glistening. He looked so young and scared in the face of Shaun's confession.

This was so him. He always fell too hard too fast.

But then Zach steeled his features, tamped down the scared look in his eye as he confessed, "Neither have I."

He shrugged, honest in the face of his words, and Shaun could have laughed at how brilliant it sounded falling from Zach's lips. A pleasant buzz of joy lit its way through Shaun, from his head to his toes, and he couldn't hide his smile. He hesitated a moment longer, soaking in the look of openness on Zach's face, and then kissed him. Light at first, nothing more than lips and gentle pressure. But the warm feelings coursing through Shaun were building steadily inside him. He felt Zach's own body heat against his, and Zach's mouth opened to his tongue, wanting.

Shaun was on fire, a fuse lit by Zach's passion and tender grace. Their tongues slid against each other and he brought his hands underneath Zach's strong shoulders, wrapping him in his arms. Zach cupped Shaun's nape in one hand and rested the other at the small of Shaun's back, bringing them closer still. The feel of their bodies pressed so tightly together was still just as intoxicating and heady as it'd been earlier, but their movements were no longer hurried by desperation and lustful desire.

The lust was still there, but underneath it was something deeper, something bigger. For now, Shaun let his tongue speak his words for him, telling Zach that he was there and patient and so ready for anything that Zach wanted to give him.

Zach wasn't good at it, Shaun knew that.

He didn't know how to put words to what he wanted, too many years of his own needs being pushed aside for those of others. But Shaun wanted to teach him, longed to spend hours listening to Zach telling him everything that he wanted. What he wanted to accomplish with his art. What he wanted for Cody. And other things, too. What inspired him. The things that kept him awake at night. (He already had a few suspicions on that one.) How he liked to be touched.

Shaun wanted to learn it all. And what Zach had just told him, it was a start.

It was _the_ start.


End file.
